As for New York, New York -- it's been more than 20 years since I saw it, although I think of it every time I explain pan-and-scan to students because I saw it that way on VHS [and also on a Swank rental 16mm].

As for New York, New York -- it's been more than 20 years since I saw it, although I think of it every time I explain pan-and-scan to students because I saw it that way on VHS [and also on a Swank rental 16mm].

Elsewhere, Vadim takes on David Denby and Devin Faraci, who are... white men with opinions about movies and some semblance of bully pulpit access that encourages each to bloviate? I think? Whatever, Vadim's hilarious and on point.

When I speak of moviegoers, I mean people who get out of the house and into a theater as often as they can; or people with kids, who back up rare trips to the movies with lots of recent DVDs and films ordered on demand. I do not mean the cinephiles, the solitary and obsessed [...] They are extraordinary, some of them, and their blogs and websites generate an exfoliating mass of knowledge and opinion, a thickening density of inquiries and claims, outraged and dulcet tweets. Yet it is unlikely that they can do much to build a theatrical audience for the movies they love. And directors still need a sizable audience if they are to make their next picture about something more than a few people talking on the street.

What's remarkable about this argument is how quickly it moves from lamenting that some $30 million dreams go unrealized (free market capitalism's a fickle patron of the arts) to the idea that the near-total absence of mass cultural dreams invalidates film's more obscure achievements, and their lack of mass-viewing cachet in turn weakens the very medium itself. Denby uses "exfoliating" to describe the films he marginalizes and those who love them: they're dead skin. That's fine and leaves my enjoyment of these instantly archaic objects intact.

I remember seeing the ad and feeling more like I was living in a fascist, totalitarian state than I'd ever felt before. Fair to the man himself or not, I swore that day that I would never watch another Tom Hanks movie, ever.

Wait a minute! If Thornhill is heading west on East 59th Street, how the heck does he end up parking in front of the Plaza – on the opposite side of the street? Surely Hitch must have cheated the shot!

At this late-night screening at the Somerville Theatre, I sat two seats over from director Bobcat Goldthwait's friend of many years, Tony V. [who plays the pedophile in the pancake house, if you must know], which put me in the comedians-giving-each-other-the-business-badinage crossfire. [See below.]

Here's what I wrote on the back of a Brattle Film Foundation membership form about God Bless America:

"This is a v. violent movie about kindness." - Tony V.

It's go time.

Gun Crazy

Network

Little Murders

Taxi Driver

Bonnie & Clyde

"Oh, Frank would shoot you right in the fucking mouth."

What I remember: Liking it so much that I made a point of recommending it to friends who'd worked for a tabloid that rhymes with Muss Meekly; laughing through the whole Q&A; enjoying Freddie Rumson going vigilante. I later rewatched it with the 'Fesser and Oat Soda on Netflix Instant, and a fine time was had by all.

Oh, Kid-Thing. What a creepy little picture from the Zellner boys. Here's what I wrote on a napkin:

Bachrach wordless singing

'70s movie blonde

Jackie Earle Haley

What I remember: Really liking the tomboy stylings of protag Annie, especially her problem-solving mixed with secrecy mixed with random cruelty; feeling sad when Susan Tyrrell, who played Esther and was so magnificent in Fat City died this summer.

“The last thing my mother said to me,” Ms. Tyrrell said in a 2000 interview with LA Weekly, “was, ‘SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.’ I’ve always liked that, and I’ve always tried to live up to it.”

So Yong Kim's films sound totally up my street, but For Ellenwas the first I managed to see projected. [It was also the second film I saw at this year's IFFBoston.] I'm not gonna lie -- it kind of irritated me. Basically, I liked Cleanbetter.

TRIBECA: Did you and Paul hit it off right away? Did you find the energy to feed off of each other?

JON HEDER: Yes and no. I am, by nature, a lot like Butler. And Paul certainly plays a lot of the role “in character,” but if it was strict to the script and so controlled, it would feel like, This is acting. But it wasn’t so controlled, so we could just kind of try different takes and feel things out. So it was him just being very real.

Or at least that's the first thing I scribbled about a doc I can't recommend highly enough: Beauty Is Embarrassing, which played at Full Frame and IFFBoston this spring [I caught it at the former]. You need to know about Wayne White. And then tell your friends. In fact, when my former student Vince -- a gifted artist who transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago -- showed up at Film Forum after I put out a general Facebook call for folks to come see Celine and Julie Go Boating with me this past May, I insisted he see this film about a fellow southern eccentric. Fast-forward to last month, when Vince's status update read:

Here's what I wrote on the other half of that Speakeasy flyer, about The Queen of Versailles, the latest from Lauren Greenfield, whose photography and film Thin I love, and with whom I randomly wandered Harvard Square in the company of a group of her undergrad classmates, when we were in town for our respective college's respective reunions. [The cinetrix has a bit of the will o' the wisp about her.]

What I remember: Jackie's attempts at economies. She goes to a big box, then buys a bunch of shit they already have, trailed around the space by a retinue dragging overflowing shopping carts. Empty cube farms. Greenfield's palpable affection for her subjects. Even when they have a servant wear a costume for a holiday party. And, DOG SHIT. EVERYWHERE.